


Round And Round The Garden

by Dusty



Series: Conversations In The Car [14]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Dark, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Nightmares, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 05:52:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dusty/pseuds/Dusty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The closer she gets to James, the closer she gets to everything. Follows on a few days after All Time High.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reflections

**Author's Note:**

> Bit of angst for you. I will make it better, I promise.

He was strong. She ran her hands over his biceps. She’d forgotten how strong. And yet he was all hers. His every single nerve ending belonged to her. This magnificent beast she’d tamed while no one else could. This brilliant man, who now writhed under her violently, bucking upwards and into her as she rode him. She stared into his dark eyes, squeezing him with her own powerful muscles, watching his expression go from bliss to panic and back to bliss again. But she would be first. She let her head fall back, feeling her spine arch and her breasts swing, knowing he was eyeing the line of her neck as she worked tirelessly towards her own climax.

It hit her, and her shouts filled the room, mingling with his cries of desperation. Her body quaked with pleasure and she lurched forwards, supporting herself on her arms and kissing his lips. She hovered over him, breasts gracing his chest. He lifted his hips, slipping in and out of her. He never was quite as dangerously violent in sex as he promised, his calculating eyes watching for her comfort. Did he love her?

Thoughts were breaking in. She moved one hand quickly to his throat and pressed hard. He looked back at her in horror, and she knew he could see her cold heart. She winked, and changed the pressure on his neck slightly until his breathing became lightly impaired.

“Good boy,” she said, still clenching around him.

“Ay dios mio, ay dios mio, _Olivia_.” 

His head lolled back, his hips jerking frantically, completely lost.

“Tiago,” she intoned. “Ven.”

With a roar, he gripped her hips, and in a series of violent thrusts came endlessly inside her. It triggered a second orgasm in her and she lost herself again, the room going dark. 

She sat panting, eyes closed. She hadn’t expected that. She could feel his essence inside her, still hot, and she felt so deliciously bad, so ecstatically free. Gradually, she opened her eyes. 

Beneath her was Raoul Silva, dead, half his face collapsed and eroded, his hate-filled eyes staring back at her. 

She screamed, and heard someone running towards the bedroom door. A man flung himself into the room.

It was James. He looked at her with abject disgust and disappointment as she sat there, an old sagging woman, atop her dead agent.

\---

 

She opened her eyes with a sharp inhale. The room was dark and silent, rhythmic breathing next to her suggesting James was fast asleep. She was sure she had screamed out loud, but then realised she must have dreamt that too. She sat up gingerly, feeling her silk pyjamas clinging to her, damp with sweat. She felt as though her heart had been pulled out.

Stunned, she slipped out of bed and padded into the bathroom, closing the door behind her.

\---

 

He was vaguely aware of the shower running. It didn’t make much sense. It was still dark. Why would she be up? He rolled over, taking in her scent on the pillow. He smiled drowsily and was immediately asleep again. 

When he awoke it wasn’t dark anymore. The morning light still had an edge to it, so he knew it was early. But something felt wrong. A draft was coming in from somewhere. He sat up, sensing the emptiness of the house, and quickly pulled on his jeans and a tee shirt.

He clenched his teeth as he made his way through the house with a growing sense of unease. When he stepped into the living room, he shivered. It was freezing. He turned to see the large patio doors wide open, framing a rectangle of pure light, the chiffon curtains billowing in the wind. For a moment he was struck by the vision, as if his mind wouldn’t let him move forward. He blinked as he approached the doors and the garden beyond them.

He couldn’t see her at first, though it wasn’t a large garden and there certainly wasn’t anywhere to hide. But she was standing in front of a white rose bush – her emerald dressing gown and white hair providing excellent camouflage.

 _Ever the soldier_ , thought James. She had her back to him, and he thought she was studying the roses, but with a second look he realised she was simply staring into space.

“Oi!” he called. “What are you doing? It’s freezing.”

She didn’t respond and he felt a shiver go down his spine. He rubbed his arms for warmth and started walking towards her, bare feet on the lawn.

“What are you doing?” he asked again, sounding like a cross parent. She looked up at him this time, and he stopped in his tracks. He hated himself for thinking it, but she _looked so old_. Several things fleeted through his mind in an instant – one voice suggesting that perhaps he’d been asleep for 10 years and just finally woken up. Or perhaps she’d been bitten by a vampire. He rubbed his eyes, but still she looked quite grey in the face, and every single line on her was etched in like a scar.

She was trembling with cold and she pulled the robe tighter around her, but didn’t make to walk towards him or the house. Instead she crossed the garden ungracefully in her slippers, apparently inspecting another rose bush. But she was fidgeting with her hair, her dressing gown, then her hands; quite distracted.

 _Had she had bad news_ , he wondered. And then it didn’t matter. He needed to get her inside. He braced himself and marched up to her.

“Hey, come inside. It’s cold.” He tried to catch her by the arm, then the hand, but she shifted out of the way as if in a trance.

She shook her head. “No… I need air. I need to sort out the garden.” Her voice cracked and he fought not to be affected.

 _How long had she been out here?_ He used his best Commander Bond voice. “This isn’t a game, now. Get inside.”

She was staring at a rose, a blood red rose.

“ _M_ ,” he said pointedly, sternly, shocking her out of her reverie. She started at the use of her long lost title, but it had the desired effect. Her mind cleared, and she began to shake properly with cold as she snapped back to the present.

“Inside,” he said, almost nastily, with a light but unyielding grip on her arm that led her firmly back inside the house. He sat her down on the sofa with an order not to move, then quickly closed the patio doors. With a flick of a switch the heating came on full blast, breathing warmth back into the rooms, and in record time he got the machine making strong coffee for them both.

He sat down in the chair opposite the couch, and glared at her.

“What the Hell happened?”

She was still trembling slightly, the chill deep inside, her visions clawing at her. Her breaths came in short starts as she tried to collect her thoughts. She swallowed hard.

“It was nothing really,” she said, followed by a harsh laugh. She forced herself to look at him. “A dream. A bad dream.”

He frowned, his eyes boring into hers. She looked away, as if the case was closed, and she’d given a concise explanation for her behaviour and they’d speak no more about it.

He huffed impatiently. “A bad dream?” he asked.

She shrugged in response, still looking away.

He glowered at her. “I had a dream once that I killed my parents,” he said casually. She looked at him in surprise for a second time that morning. He continued.

“It was so real, for a few days I thought I might have done it. That it was me. That it was actually a memory I repressed, and this was the truth.”

She said nothing, but his words were going straight to her heart.

He picked at the upholstery. “Worse thing was, it felt right. It seemed to suit me somehow, fitted with my opinion of myself. And so real; more real than reality.” He then fixed her with a deadly look. “So don’t give me any shit about it just being a dream.”

He stood and went to the kitchen, pouring the now brewed coffee into two mugs. He wordlessly brought them out to the living room and placed them on the coffee table. Then he kneeled in front of her and placed his hands over hers in her lap.

They were still cold. He looked longingly at her, warming and stilling her hands. “It wasn’t a dream. You fell into a hell dimension.”

It made her laugh a little. “Don’t be so dramatic,” she chided sweetly. Her eyes filled with tears. She took one hand and stroked his hair, which was still sticking up from a night of deep sleep. She could say nothing, her throat dry. She simply shook her head slowly from side to side as tears began to slip down her face.

“Bond,” she rasped. “James. I’ve done a terrible thing.”


	2. Fragments

“Tell me about the dream,” said James evenly.

She looked at him. “It’s not about the dream.”

He huffed. “It’s _all_ about the dream, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Tell me what happened, then we can deal with your misspent youth.”

Her eyes narrowed at his impish grin, but his cheek succeeded in lifting her spirits.

“So,” he said. “Man to man, or shall I say murderer to murderer, I’ve told you mine, now you tell me yours.”

“My what?”

“Your nightmare, you daft bitch.”

She shot daggers at him. Colour was returning to her cheeks. “Careful,” she said, her voice laced with genuine warning.

He looked down submissively and rubbed her knee. “Sorry,” he said sweetly. When he looked up, she was smiling softly at him. They regarded each other in silence for a moment, then she swallowed several times as she prepared herself. His hands wrapped around hers, warm and solid.

Bravely, she began. “I was in Hong Kong, in my old apartment. You would have liked it. Everything was just as it was; textures, smells, lighting. Some things were off but it felt the same.” She hung her head. James listened without interruption. He could guess what this was about. He gently squeezed her hand as her breath trembled.

Her eye line dropped as she continued. “I was with Tiago Rodriguez. I think you probably guessed that. He was like he used to be – not the man you met. He was my agent again. Funny, it never occurred to me at the time but in retrospect, I suppose he was an innocent.”

She shuddered, then took a deep breath, still unable to look at him. “In the dream, we were together, having sex, and I choked him to death accidentally, and then he looked like Silva - with that horrible face implant removed.”

James frowned, his warm hands still caressing hers, now in soothing circles. She was silent for a while, and he frantically tried to settle on something to say, but she spoke again. “He was dead beneath me, only I was as I am now. And then you found us, just like that. And you hated me.”

Her voice broke on ‘hated’, but she immediately cleared her throat and regained her resolve. “That’s what happened.”

With a long, considered sigh, he got up off the floor and sat next to her, still holding her hand.

“You do realise this was probably triggered by some of the stuff we’ve been doing?” he asked gently. 

She responded with a dismissive shrug, her thoughtful scowl telling him that actually it hadn’t occurred to her yet.

“You told me once that your relationship with him was very intimate, if not physical,” he said, watching her carefully. “Now we’re closer, it’s bound to bring up some shit for you. Especially given this has all come up fairly recently.”

She remained silent, eyes averted, her hands constantly restless.

Her lack of response prompted him to continue. “I know it feels like it just happened, so you feel like you actually just murdered him…”

“Didn’t I?” she cut him off. “Essentially, I did kill him. I gave him up.”

“Not before he gave you up by betraying your trust,” James said urgently. “You did your job. He fucked up and you did what you had to do. You know that.”

He spoke harshly, and she knew he was right. But all she could see was Silva’s face, and it felt like a reflection of all the corruption in the world. Corruption she felt very much part of.

He studied her steadily. “You feel guilty for getting too close to him. And me. Right?”

She met his eyes for the first time since she’d related the dream to him. “Yes,” she croaked. “As well I should, Bond.”

“James,” he corrected her. “But not Tiago. I’m not him.”

“I know you’re not,” she snapped. “But you are – were my agent. And you are…”

“Half your age?”

She glared at him. “ _Nearly_ half my age. Not quite there yet, thank you very much.”

“I like it,” he said flippantly.

“I know you do.” She was playing with her hands again.

He stilled them with his own once more. “You are processing a lot of things right now.” His voice was soft. “I imagine you have more than a few decades of ghosts catching up with you, especially now that you can’t distract yourself by torturing intelligence officers.”

She slapped his thigh and he slapped hers back with a warning look.

“Cut it out, Ollie,” he said pointedly. It was her turn to look abashed.

He continued tenderly. “You’re bound to have dreams, nightmares and all kinds for a while. You know about this. You’ve been sending agents on counselling courses for years about this shit. Take some of your own medicine and for god’s sake don’t start roaming around in your nightclothes.”

She actually pouted for a moment before screening it by pursing her lips.

He chuckled. “Can’t have you wondering distracted about the garden. People will talk.”

She looked at him coldly. “You don’t think they already are? People must see you come and go.”

“I’m a spy,” he hissed. He picked up her coffee and handed it to her.

She got the message and sipped sheepishly. “Sorry, I’m not thinking am I...”

“I think you’re still confusing agents and countries,” James said.

She blinked at him and sighed. “Yes,” she said sadly.

“You’re in the present now,” he stated. “London, England. With me. And you’re not my boss anymore.”

She broke into a warm smile and held his face. “Yes I am,” she drawled. She leaned in and kissed him delicately on the lips.

She felt a sudden pang go through her and she sat back, breathless, a shaky hand plonking the mug on the coffee table. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” she said, panicked. “I feel like I brought the world down because of my relationship with him, and now I’m doing it again. I don’t know what I’m doing! I’m sorry!” She buried her face in her hands.

He put his arms around her and held her firmly as she dissolved into proper tears. He rocked her gently, for what felt like an age, kissing her forehead.

After she’d calmed a little, he spoke quietly and steadily. “You know exactly what you’re doing. You always know exactly what you’re doing. You just find it hard to live with.”

She listened, now too exhausted to resist his support and comfort. “That which we are we are,” he said serenely. “You weren’t punished for your actions. You were caught in a shit storm. And you weathered it bravely, like you always do. You’re not wrong to want what you want. And the world won’t end because of it.”

“You’re just saying that so you can get your leg over again,” she mumbled.

“Someone’s feeling better,” he said sardonically, giving her a squeeze. He rubbed her back and bit his lip, carefully considering his words. “Maybe just accept that these power games are a part of you and not just your job. You don’t like that about yourself, do you?”

He felt her tense. She opened her mouth but said nothing, a far away look in her eyes.

His fingers graced her neck lightly. “Whatever floats your boat. Can’t rationalise everything.”

“How about anything?” she directed at him waspishly.

“Don’t have a go at me,” he hit back. “I like what I like. Some people never even work out what they like because it scares them. Life’s too short for that.”

She considered this for a few moments before simply leaning her head on shoulder, letting him support the weight of her mind.

He smiled.

\---

 

They sat like that, silently, for some time, until James noticed the light outside had become warmer and fuller. Something occurred to him.

“Shit,” he hissed.

“What?” she sat up straight, alarmed.

He leapt up, then bent down and kissed her apologetically. “I’m late. I have a 9 o’clock with Mallory.”

She gave him an exasperated sigh. “Oh for goodness’ sake. Get in the shower!”

He ran upstairs. “No time!” he called out.

She could hear him flapping about getting ready. She curled up on the sofa with a chuckle, playing with her feet. Then she remembered herself and the ghosts that had so recently been staring her down.

“He isn’t you,” she breathed. Strength returned to her in a rush in that moment of stillness, listening to James’ hopeless swearing and crashing about upstairs as if he were a teenage boy late for school. She pondered Mallory’s inevitable displeasure and smiled to herself, the chill from earlier that morning quite gone.

She remembered herself. And she remembered peace.


End file.
